If you think a year is to long then I'm afraid you will be discouraged most of the time while marketing online because it will, unless your the real McCoy internet "Guru" in which case please contact me and lets make boat loads of cash.

If your serious and are willing to walk the talk, let's begin.

Keyword research for your site is a must. Find and use some kind of keyword research tool such as those from the good folks at Axandra. to find the perfect keyword phrases for your site and to also check what phrases your competitors are using.

You will want to get a domain name that is no more than two words and that is relevant to your content. If you are selling rubber baby buggy bumpers then you might try "safebaby.com" or babybumper.com. You need to create your brand and your domain is where your brand begins.

After choosing your great new name and have found as many relevant keyword phrases for your niche then take the plunge and get it hosted somewhere. I love godaddy and have used them for years, but you may not. just get it out there in front of new eyeballs at your host of choice.

It does not have to be a huge site to begin with. You should put up at least an "about me" section stating who you are and what you do and what your going to do and when, and then make sure that the major search engines have a chance to let their spiders crawl it and chew on it for an appetizer.

Note: A pet peeve of mine when consulting newbies is that they want to be "finished" with their site, their Whole site, before submitting anything. Your Site Wont EVER be finished. Don't let getting ready to get ready to get ready doom you from the start, just jump in the waters fine.

I don't buy the saying "knowledge is power" but I would if it said knowledge combined with action is power.

Anyway, on to the next step.

Bring on the main course for those hungry little spiders with 20 0r 30 pages of real relevant content containing all of your relevant keyword phrases for each page. The spiders will be happy and you will have given them a good reason to pay you back with good search results.

You will want to stay away from slam bam graphics and flash in your site design. It is easier to keep your visitors on your site if it is simple and easy to navigate. If they wanted entertainment they would be watching TV.

Optimize your site as much as possible so that it is quick to load even for the dial up visitors, yes there are still plenty of them out there.

Do a quick search for "usability" for tips on not violating website design characteristics.

Make sure to put your keyword phrases in your title and headers and in your content. If it's baby bumpers then your writing will be About baby bumpers. In other words, you write About your keywords, you don't just stick them in somewhere.

Keep the navigation the same on all pages ie.. graphical interfaces on the left or top with a text version at the bottom.

Don't let that visitor slip away to quickly by grabbing their attention with bold headers because when they first visit your page their just scanning or window shopping, not reading.

Build a site map that links to your pages and stick it in a text link at the bottom of your pages.

Remember I said your site is never finished and now That you have built the foundation for your business it's time to add some goodies. Write a new content page every two to three days, say around 200-500 words to keep visitors coming back for your words of wisdom.

DON'T use tricks such as keyword stuffing and doorway pages leading to useless garbage, it will cost you in the end.

Find ot who is linking to your competitors by using google's link service ie...type in "link:http://www.competitorsdomain.com" and you will see who is linking to them. Contact them and get them to link to you too.

Submit your site to 4 or 5 directories that are suited to your niche such as yahoo and DMOZ and local directories such as the yellow pages.

You need a blog for getting to know some of the millions of wonderful people (buyers) out there and to show that your a human being that they can trust. post at least once per week.

Stay away from reciprocal links and link farms, but do submit your site to appropriate webmasters and ask them to link to you because it will benefit them in some way.

Track your visitors. track your sales. track your links, track your tracks, if you don't know where your at, you sure wont know how to get where your going.

Pay per click sites such as google adwords work to keep your brand out there, and is a good investment in your business. You did know that there would be some overhead right? Good then I'm not writing to someone in la-la land.

Keep up to date on new trends and write an article once a week and submit it to as many article directories as possible.

Study your traffics patterns after 60 to 90 days so you can determine how best to guide them through your site and also check the search engines and directories that you submitted too and resubmit if your not found.

Press releases are great for new product or service announcements and for new content, why not offer RSS feeds to your visitors.

If you do these things consistently and persistently and keep your content fresh, you will almost be guaranteed to have a successful website this time next year.